Working With Prudence

Prudence Aqila started her career as a botanist well before she earned her degree in botany. She was always fascinated by the life in foliage, especially interested in the life and behavior of trees. She interned at a local horticultural society and worked part time in a garden center to pay her tuition. Prudence spent years learning the similarities and differences between humans and trees with the intention of a greater sense of care for trees. It was a time in the world when energy supply was at critical levels of depletion. Animals became inutile after movements from previous generations to popularize vegetarianism. They were viewed as parasites consuming resources without purpose. Whole species were actively destroyed to make room for the ever growing human population. Some animals survived by scavenging but not many. The word pet was not used anymore and the animals that existed were viewed as feral. The Communalis Charter Libertatum was established by the global political joint committee For One For All. Although separation of class and wealth still existed, all humans were provided shelter, food, educational opportunities and technology. There was an international call for submission to provide alternate forms of energy. There were monetary grants offered and contests held to increase the constantly waning supplies of energy. The details of FAFO's charter provided for farms to be established for the production of food. Wooded areas were replaced with homes to accommodate the human population and even the trees that were deemed less useful like redwoods and oak were removed to provide space for food production. Every child was provided electronic devices to educate, entertain and monitor. Schools were in session remotely. Most careers were accommodated remotely as well. The only reason many people emerged from their home was for social interaction, although with video screens and virtual playtime, many just isolated. Food could be ordered and delivered. Families reverted to arranged marriages and genetic advances even provided for asexual reproduction to fulfill the need of procreation. Society, Prudence felt, became sterile. And yet, despite societal disapproval, Prudence continued her research in the dirt, financing her life by working nights in a coffee shop for minimum wage and tips. With the modest governmental stipend allowed for shelter, she lived in a small mobile home made of aluminum parked in between trees in a forest saving every coin she earned for the day in the future when she would distribute her findings to the masses. Prudence walked from her mobile home to her car parked on a paved slab with a sign indicating the space was reserved for private use. The sign was unnecessary as no one ever came to the forest in which she lived. It fell out of fashion to hike and camp when businesses created simulations and realistic experiences in what was perceived to be safe, albeit synthetic, spaces. Prudence climbed into her vehicle providing two seats. She placed her hand on the steering wheel and the automobile scanned the skin of her palms and fingertips confirming she was the driver. The memory allowed for five drivers, but this car only used one portion of that allowance. The car pulled energy from the air storing it in cells for later use. The meter indicating the stores read 7/8 full and that was more than enough for Prudence to drive to work. Prudence backed out from the paved slab and drove over the soil that had been tamped down from only her car over the years in which she lived there. She drove through trees with the windows of the vehicle open and listened as she drove to the howl of the wind and the songs of the trees. Most people, as Prudence discovered, did not have the desire to hear the song of the trees. They are more comfortable with the belief that the trees are configured with the outermost dead celled bark and transpirative leaves never seeing the life within. But Prudence saw purpose in every function of the tree and she knew that within the bark, there was a living breathing fleshy creature who would sing if nourished and provided the correct balance of breath and hydration. She discovered that as trees age, their inhalation becomes equal to their exhalation providing a service to every other living organism by drawing in the toxins from the air and cleansing it before exhaling crisp fresh vapor. However, by the time she discovered the correlation of breath to age, erroneous information about volatile organic compound emissions from trees and wood haze had become accepted as truth. Intended wildfires were initiated and teams of fire control units assured forests of trees were destroyed. Privately planted non-food bearing trees were deemed illegal and unless concealed by high fences, citizens were required to have them removed and shredded for use in particle board assuring residual seeding of the harmful wood would not occur by mistake. Even those with high fences reported and destroyed their trees being fed the propaganda that the trees were not only useless for humans but detrimental. The woods in which Prudence lived was not unlike many other preserves throughout the world hidden in plain sight from those who merely did not want to see. Generally deemed unworthy of habitation, the spaces green with trees and foliage were untenanted by humans. However, there were some who chose to live in homes nestled in the recesses of the woods. Every now and then a story would emerge about a recluse living in a tree-house high above the ground, accessed by a rope ladder or a bridge made from flexible planks. Prudence drove until the scenery differed completely from that in which she awoke. The street beneath her vehicle was pitch asphalt. The buildings to her left and right reached high in the sky housing hundreds of families in an abbreviated surface area. Prudence waited outside a gate as a light flashed around her car. A screen above the lane into which she was to drive illuminated with her photograph confirming her identity and vocalized the words, "Welcome Prudence Aqila." Prudence turned the steering wheel slightly left and pulled onto a belt that would safely pull her car through the parking lot into her assigned space. She removed her hands from the steering wheel causing the vehicle to power down as the building mechanics would do the remaining driving. When the car was in place, Prudence programed a small panel to allow for the expected time in which she would have her vehicle parked and exited to walk through a door near her car into the coffee shop she would spend the overnight hours for her job. Prudence worked at Trieb, a coffee shop located in the exact mid-section of a building that reached high into the sky containing a factory for the manufacture of the hand held devices, computer screens and projectors for screen-less communication- the kind of work that could not be done remotely. Prudence stood in a doorway while a light shone over her and a screen illuminated again with her photo and audibly the machine emitted, "Prudence Aqila, checked in for wages." There was a short pause with a series of high-pitched beeps before it revealed, "Sanitary for work," and then dimmed again. Prudence went to work pouring coffee and moving plates of food from a cook's hand to the lunch counter talking with patrons as she was careful to notice cues for refilling mugs and collecting payments. Screens through the coffee shop played news programs, sports matches and fictionalized stories. The audio was controlled by moving switches embedded in the lunch counter also controlling the small speakers provided at every seat of the eatery. Prudence thought society had become completely distracted by the devices they believed were technologically advanced. Few people who sat at the counter to eat their dinners and lunches mid-shift in the 24 hour operation of the building spoke more words than were necessary to order. Occasionally there would be a stranger in the coffee shop, but the primary source of patronage was the factory housed in the building. Two men sidled up to the counter wearing an unusual amount of layers. They both wore similar clothing although not the same fabrics. Each wore a hat, one a trilby made from an odd wool-like tweed that had not been fashionable for over a hundred years, the other wore a cap made from a synthetic fabric made to feel and appear like an aged memory of cowhide. Each wore a long overcoat with many pockets. Each wore a double knit polyester jacket. Each wore a vest, one with a metal zipper, one with wooden buttons. There was nothing unusual to Prudence about the individual articles of clothing, but as a whole, there was something that struck Prudence as odd. "Beans, cornmash, peppers and spiced-bread," the one gentleman requested using no more words than necessary. "I'll have the same, but parsnip cubes instead of cornmash," the other said. Prudence keyed in the order on a small electronic notepad as she confirmed, "Nothing fried," as she found it unusual to be absent from the requests? Both men said, "no," at the same time and Prudence pushed a button on the back of the notepad to send the order to the kitchen for preparation. She poured coffee into mugs for the men and pointed in the direction of a coat rack to alleviate them of their cumbersome layers if desired. They declined the offer wanting to keep all their things not only with them on the chairs they occupied, but on their person. Prudence shrugged her shoulders in disregard of their oddities and tried to drown out their conversation but found herself interested in their words. "The dendrophiliacs love the trees. It's not sick, it's just not what you love." "A tree cannot return love. It's not natural to love a tree." The gentlemen noticed Prudence watching their lips as they moved so she could eavesdrop on their conversation from the end of the counter. They motioned to their mugs so she approached them with a pot of coffee to fill their mugs. "Jerome Fosser," the man said as he placed his hand on his chest. "This is my pal Eugene Vespillo. Interested in dendrophilia" Prudence shook her head in negation. She said, "I think it's vulgar and abusive." And then realizing her tip for service may be reflective on her opinion of people choosing to have a sexual relationship with trees, she went on to clarify, "Personally I don't care how others live their lives, but for me, I would never," Prudence did not finish her thought because she wasn't sure what she was trying to convey. "You work in the building," Prudence asked? "No," Fosser responded, "We're in the area for work, but we don't work in the factory." "What work do you perform," Prudence asked relieved she successfully changed the topic? Fosser looked at Vespillo and smiled, "We consult with a private council to assure they get what they need." "Consultants," Prudence said. "I'll bet most of your work is done without ever meeting other people." Vespillo nodded as his eyes seemed to smile, "We make a point of making connections with people." "That's great," Prudence said! "I think I see the same hundred people in here and it makes me sad to think of the billions who never are exposed to natural sunlight or breathe air from the trees." "Sounds like you do have an affinity for the trees." Prudence smiled and said, "I like the trees." She paused and then continued, "For their intention." She winked and walked from the two, collecting empty plates and payments along her way to the end of the counter again. Ж Prudence peeled off her work uniform and replaced the clothes with a cotton dress that covered her arms and legs. The sun was rising and she was exhausted from working overnight but knew there was further work to be done. She pulled a journal from a stack of books and an inkless pen from her desk. She pulled a key from a hook near the door and clipped it to a silver chain she wore around her neck. She pulled a dark silk scarf from the same hook. She placed the journal, pen and scarf into a cotton satchel. Prudence stepped through the door of her mobile home and assured the lock engaged when she pulled the thin piece of aluminum closed. She stepped barefoot into the soil and closed her eyes to feel the connection to the earth inhaling the air deeply into her lungs. She walked a haphazard path, some steps in soil, some on rocky earth and some on patches of grasses and ivy. She walked a mile from her home and asked permission to sit in the grass. Prudence fell to the earth and pulled the silk scarf from her bag. She reached in her bag to retrieve the journal and pen. Thumbing through the journal, she found the space in which she last wrote. She tied the scarf around her face to cover her eyes and picked up the open journal and pen. Prudence hummed a melodious tune. The trees responded in her ears with their own song. She wrote feverishly in the journal words that she did not know existed. The energies that danced through the air invigorated her fingers and the notes she made filled page after page as the sound her tongue made pressed against her palette mingled with the song of the trees in the air. For hours Prudence sat among the trees listening and writing until she grew weak from exhaustion. She leaned back in the grass and dropped the journal to the ground to her left and the pen to her right. She untied the blindfold and lay the silk scarf across her belly. She yawned; drawing in the fresh air provided by the trees and extended gratitude for her time in the woods. Prudence rose and collected her journal, pen and scarf, pushing them each into her satchel. She walked a quarter mile to a line of cells she had used to collect energy and recorded readings from the monitors indicating the amount of energy each cell had stored and then walked back to her trailer to fall down in her bed to sleep a few hours. When waking, Prudence went to her desk and powered on her computer. She transferred the data from the journal into a data program. She typed the words she was not sure she had spelled correctly that the trees had shared with her. She opened a second computer program to transfer the melodies she recorded into music notes on a staff that appeared on a screen and when she depressed a key on the computer, the machine replicated the sound the best it could. A third computer program allowed Prudence to record the cell readings and view to date and the data retrieved in a bar graph. She worked for hours analyzing what appeared now to be data and making notes on her commune with the trees until it was time once again to go to work at the coffee shop. Ж Prudence received a letter with the official seal of FAFO creating an unease when she opened the envelope. The letter was delivered by a young boy on a bicycle to the door of her mobile home. He did not speak when she came to the door; only pressed the paper envelope toward her. She craned her neck to see if she could tell by tire tracks from what direction he had come. She did not think anyone was privy to the position of her home. Before she could say thank you, the boy picked up his fallen bike, straddled it and rode off in between the trees just as Prudence walks to get to the paved slab where she keeps her car. Dear Prudence Aqila, It has come to our attention that you not only communicate with the trees, but you have been successful at harnessing the energy the trees emit. As you are aware, the machines and processes our world uses for everyday necessities and conveniences have dropped our fuel stores to critical levels. It is the duty of every citizen to provide the ideas and theories they have to the For One For All Committee under the regulations of the Communalis Charter Libertatum. This letter is to inform you that you must bring the research and theories you have developed to the local For One For All office within three days receipt of this letter. This provides sufficient time to compile the information you believe you have as well as any ancillary materials with which you have worked. If you fail to be in compliance with this request, a representative from the office will provide transport of any materials found in your home and on your land to the local office for analysis and you will be escorted to a detention center until the materials may be analyzed and determined if you are an asset or liability to the global society. Kind Regards, Mark Carlson Prudence only had to read the letter once. She stuffed the letter into her pocket and walked into the woods crying out to the trees while tears streamed from her eyes. "I must leave here and will no longer share your song." Immediately, the trees wailed. To the untrained ear it sounded similar to the wind howling. Prudence however knew the sorrow in the air. Prudence walked out to the power cells and unplugged them from the link to her home. She dismantled the complete grid of cells and lined them up so they appeared to be nothing more than a three foot stack of innocuous boards. She stumbled back to her home and thumbed through a box of papers to find a phone number and called a man to request a meeting that very afternoon at a place she knew she would one day need to call home. She then walked to her car, drove to another paved slab that held an antique truck, outlawed for its size and fuel consumption years before, drove the truck to the stack of unplugged cells and loaded them onto the flatbed. Prudence scoured her house for every electronic device and removed all batteries and fuel cells. She placed every piece of equipment that she deactivated into a cardboard box and took the box outside her trailer. She smashed the screens, the casings, any connection plugs and anything made of glass or metal. She used wire cutters to cut the wires into shreds and then when the bits and pieces of her equipment were no longer distinguishable, she placed the pieces back into the cardboard box, poured a bottle of isopropyl alcohol on the contents and then lit a match to ignite the box. She watched the plastic pieces melt and the metal pieces curve. There was crackling and popping until she was certain the devices could not be repaired. She then took a small bucket of salt and poured it over the fire to extinguish it. Prudence fell to her knees crying in the residual heat and smoke. She could not shut out the sounds of the trees around her sobbing. She apologized over and over again and then explained that there are casualties in any battle and unfortunately this wooded retreat would suffer because the work she is doing is not complete and far too important to abandon. Finally, she picked herself up and walked to the truck. She drove to the location she requested on the phone and then sat and waited. "I need discretion. My uncle gave me your name and number. I can't emphasize enough how discreet you need to be," Prudence explained. "Hey Pru, what did your uncle tell you? I'm discreet. I don't know who you're hiding from but it's not gonna be me that helps them find you." "What about the navigation tracker in your car?" "It has a scramble on the computer." The guy opened the door of his vehicle and explained, "I can turn off the scramble so when I'm asked, it's legal. Right now, I have the navigation moving west. I assure you, they will never find you because of me. Prudence explained that she needed to turn a cave of stone into a home in only two days. "Two?" "Two. I have to be completely unplugged in three." Prudence returned to her car far from her mobile home and destroyed it with another fire. She hitched the mobile home to her truck and drove it to the cave. The cave was transformed just as she requested. Although it remained a cave, it was a home complete with a door jam and access to the outside using a hinged window piece for screening visitors before she opens the door. The door was the only thing that gave away the abode. Windows appeared to be overhanging rocks and a waterfall was rerouted over the structure to concealed even the telling door. Prudence emptied the contents of her mobile home into the cave-home and when she was finished, she drove the trailer to a cliff two hundred miles away and unhitched it from the truck, then pushed the empty vessel until it crashed over the rocks below. Prudence drove the truck to a place fifty miles in the opposite direction and left it there empty and abandoned, stripping it of all personal contents. It took a full eighteen hours of walking to reach the waterfall again. Prudence fell on to her bed and slept for days waking only to hydrate and empty her bladder. Ж Prudence lived modestly using the food in cans that she had stock piled in the mobile home for years. She drank only water she collected from the rain and wore only the clothing she owned when she moved into the cave. She continued her research placing the cells again in the middle of the trees and singing with them daily. Her journals were the record of the songs and words. She analyzed data with her eyes and writing on every piece of paper she had in her home. For months she lived in seclusion without the thought of venturing out of her world. And then one day, when the winter chill had become severe enough to turn the spray from the falls to ice and she had no more paper on which to write and the foliage and fruit from the woods could no longer be found for nourishment,she decided to bundle her body and walk until she reached the closest town to retrieve supplies in a plastic bin she augmented with a rope to drag her purchases back with her. Prudence walked for hours and was numb with chill by the time she reached a modest store selling everything a person could want. She loaded her bin and when it was time to pay for the goods, she reached into her satchel to retrieve currency. The shop keeper said, "You don't see much coin anymore! Folks have been using their hands to pay so long, I think I forgot how to tell if this is real." The shop keeper held a coin up to the overhead light while laughing. "Yes ma'am. The thing is, I did some freelance work and this is how I was paid. You do accept money, don't you," Prudence confirmed? "Oh sure, we take money. Of course we take money. I just mean to say it's not a regular thing to see it anymore." Prudence laughed and said, "The next time I come I'll be sure to have my accounts in order so I can scan my hand." "Either way. It's all payment to me." Prudence pulled the plastic container from the store and started the trek back to her cave home. She walked until the concrete of the town was replaced with sparse trees that could produce peaches or apples in the summer. She twisted and turned to get back without navigational help to her home in a cave in the shadows of thick tree coverage. And as she slipped behind the waterfall feeling completely frozen she was pulled to the ground by two gentlemen she did not notice. Prudence saw for a moment their faces and pressed her memory to recall where she had seen their faces before. They were wearing thick coats and hats and wrapped in gloves and scarves. And yet with the cushioning of the winter clothes, Prudence felt their fists punch her face and the steel-toed boots kick her back. She felt her ankle and wrist snap in their hands. "What do you want," Prudence cried out? "I have nothing!" The men did not say a word. Prudence finally fell limp on the ground behind the falling water. Ж Prudence woke in a hospital bed and quickly closed her eyes so she could listen to the people in her room. There was a team of doctors talking about her broken bones. "We need to perform surgery to disrupt the clotting agents so that her heart does not burst," said one. "We make the incision on the ankle to lessen discomfort," he continued while tapping the intravenous bag introducing fluids to her body. Another doctor depressed the plunger on a syringe to add a dosage of an opioid analgesic and Prudence fell into sedation. When Prudence woke, her parents were in the hospital room. Her leg and arm were immobilized. She had bruising on most of her body and she had tubes from her ears, nose and lungs draining fluids from punctured internal organs. "Pru, you're awake," her mother exclaimed! "You're not going back to live in seclusion. You're coming home with us." Prudence felt her head throb with the movement of blood though her swollen face. "What happened," she tried to ask, but her muffled voice sounded as if it made only a groan to her parents. "Don't talk," her father said. "I'll get the doctor." Prudence closed her eyes again and leaned back onto the bed. She was trying to remember what happened to put her in the hospital. Ж Prudence woke in a bed in the middle of the trees. She was disoriented and still could not move her arm or leg. Prudence sat up and looked at the satin nightgown she wore without recollection of ever seeing the garment before. She closed her eyes and when she opened them spun her head on her neck to again look at the trees around her. The air was still and dry. It was a space in the forest with which she was unfamiliar. She closed her eyes again, stroking her forehead with her mobile hand, urging the memory of arriving in this space to come to the front of her thoughts. A tree in front of the bed slid to reveal the image of a hallway and Prudence's mother came through the space to stand amongst the trees with Prudence. "Mom?" Prudence was trying to make sense of the images before her eyes. "Where am I?" "You're home sweetie." Prudence's mom sat on the corner of the bed. "We brought you home after your fall. I'm not letting you go live in the woods again." Prudence closed her eyes tight and opened them again trying to reason the trees she was seeing surrounding her body. "You've been laying in here for three days. We've been waiting for you to wake up. The doctor told us you won't want to get out of bed, but we can't give you any more sedation. You must get up so your bones can heal right." "It looks like I'm in the woods. But I don't know this place?" Prudence's mom rose from the bed and walked to the same tree that slid for her to come close to the bed. Again the tree slid from the space and Prudence's mom walked out to what appeared to be a hallway beyond the tree. She made a motion hidden from what Prudence could see and the room was transformed into a traditional bedroom showing clean white walls hosting family portraits, a closet with shoes and clothes hanging on hooks and bars and even a window allowing the sun to shine through gossamer curtains. "You're home," are the only words Prudence's mom said as she closed the sliding door behind her, walked to the closet to pull from a hanger a dress to lay on the bed indicating non-verbally that the expectation was for Prudence to dress and come from the room to be a part of her family once again. Prudence complied and when she opened the door and stepped into the hallway, she recognized the apartment to be the same one in which she was raised. She sighed with the first step of her bare foot onto the tile floor of the hall and walked, dragging her limp leg behind her into the living room where her parents were being entertained separately by two different computer screens. Ж A buzz from the lobby of the building startled Prudence. She noticed her mother looked at her father as they both frowned. Her mother rose to receive the visitors at the door. "Prudence Aqila please," one of the three gentlemen who stood at the door belted out into the room. Prudence looked at her father for a clue in his expression. There was nothing that she could discern. She screamed internally, "What did you do?" at her mother, but saw the frown of internal discord on her mother's face and instantly forgave whatever it was that she did. "Yes?" Prudence did not rise, but cocked her head toward her limp leg indicating that she couldn't. The gentlemen sat on the sofa and chairs around the room as Prudence's mother walked to the kitchen to prepare coffee. They explained how the resources of the world were diminishing and how the population of the Earth was growing. They outlined the compassionate need to allow procreation and the necessity of every citizen to share their thoughts and theories on energy production with the For One For All Committee. Prudence sat confused. She was certain this group was the cause of her attack behind the waterfall. She remembered the full incident in the few moments she lay still in the simulated forest bedroom. She recalled the faces of the two men from the coffee shop pushing her down and beating her. Easily they could have broken the wooden door to the cave and retrieved her research. She remembered the transport to the hospital falling in and out of lucidity. The same two gentlemen were driving her as she lay flat on a gurney in the back of a medic van. And in the hospital, when she woke from sedation, the doctor her father called in to extend discharge instructions was one of those two. Surely, she thought, they must be a part of the people looking for her research. Prudence's mom returned with the coffee and said, "Sweetie, we found this in your pocket when we went to the hospital to pick you up." Her mother unfolded the letter Prudence received from the bike messenger from the committee indicating she would need to turn over her work. "My work was destroyed in a fire," Prudence exhaled. "We saw the remnants of the fire. We also found your mobile home and the shell of your car. We know where you were living for years. We have not been able to determine where you were living after you destroyed your home. We assume you have the findings of your work in your home." The gentleman took a long gulp of his coffee and waited for Prudence to respond. "I've been living here. You can search the apartment; but honestly, I don't know what information you believe I have." The second gentleman took a more stern approach. "Ms. Aqila, we know you have been working to harness the energy from the trees. We don't know how you pull it into the fuel cells. We also don't know if the amount of energy will be a solution to the current energy crisis or if the resources spent to care for trees exceeds the value of potential fuel. If you do not have any tangible proof of your work, you will be detained until the intangible information can be extracted. The letter you received gave you three days to provide your information and back up. We are here to give you a chaperoned cycle of the sun." Prudence's mother had tears streaming down her face. She turned away from everyone as she wiped them away. The gentlemen in the apartment moved out the front door and the two other men armed with weapons moved into the apartment. Prudence continued to sit without words. For the remainder of the day, the armed men followed Prudence with every movement. She did not have a moment alone. They were in her bedroom when she changed into pyjamas and flipped the simulator to create trees in the room again while she lay in bed. Prudence placed the pillow over her eyes as she cried silently. She was conjuring ideas all day how to leave the apartment and get back to the cave so that she could retrieve her journals and start over again in another space. She felt the pain in her leg and felt the absence of feeling in her arm. She knew even if she did get out of the apartment, she would never be able to navigate her way on a hobbled leg to the cave. In the morning, Prudence was taken to a detention center having said no words to lead the FOFA to her research. For months she sat in the cell. Her arm and leg healed. The cuts and bruises from her attack disappeared completely. Daily, she met with a psychiatrist to determine her emotional state and receive a plea to share her data with the government. She was told the trees would be compensated for their efforts in the energy crisis and she would be paid handsomely. Prudence did not waiver. And then on a night when the air was warm and she felt discomfort on the cot in her cell, she fell a stabbing pain in her leg and heard a faint buzz. Prudence sat up and rubbed her fingers along the ankle of the leg that had been broken. There was a scar that seemed to pulse beneath her skin. The pain was not unbearable but remained a discomfort. Weeks passed with the same activity. She was cared for physically in the detention center and given necessities to survive. Periodically her leg would throb with pain just before she heard a faint buzzing. She knew something was in her ankle. She tried to tell the psychiatrist who negotiated giving her an internal scan, if she turned over her research with the trees. She did not give in. Months went by and when her father came into the detention center to make a plea for Prudence to turn over her research, she asked for a pen and notebook suggesting she would write down everything from her head - the only record she claimed existed. "You will write your thoughts and remain in detention until theories are confirmed with engineers. Do you agree to these terms," the psychiatrist confirmed before giving prudence the journal and pen as requested? Prudence took the pen and paper in her hands and wrote one sentence before taking the pen and plunging it into her ankle ripping it through her skin and up to her thigh. The psychiatrist pulled her hand with the pen away from her body. Prudence kept her grasp on the pen and swept her hand up to her neck stabbing and severing her carotid artery causing blood to spew over every person that was in the cell with her - the guard, the psychiatrist and her father. Prudence fell to the floor and the journal she had in her hand fell to the floor. When her father picked up the book, tears washing his daughter's blood from his cheeks, he read the words silently, "I will not be the cause of their abuse." Prudence was buried in the ground without a coffin. The only people in attendance were her parents, siblings and the gravediggers. "Into the earth, as she always wanted to spend her days," her father said during her eulogy. Jerome Fosser and Eugene Vespillo removed soil from the earth as requested and then moved Prudence's naked corpse wrapped in white linen fabric and tied with plant roots as her parents thought she would prefer. "Mindful of all things natural," he father described her to the forest as he mimicked what he believed was odd behavior asking acceptance from the foliage. As Fosser and Vespillo moved the turned soil back onto the body, Prudence's family lowered their heads and walked to their vehicles knowing the time they had with Prudence was at an end. When the family was out of sight, Fosser and Vespillo went to work removing the soil from over Prudence's body and then walked under a nearby tree to sit on the ground. Vespillo pulled out a small rectangle of glass and dragged his finger along the piece without words. An aircraft came silently through the trees, lowered a claw-like appendage into the earth and pulled Prudence from the fresh grave to pull her into the aircraft and ascend into the clouds as quickly as it came down. Ж Prudence woke in someplace called the Valetudinarium where her body was reconstructed. The process took months. She retained the scarring on her leg, but the scar around her neck was almost undetectable. "My name is Foster and I will help you acclimate to society here on Jupiter," the man spoke with little inflection as if he had introduced himself to millions of folks and was reading from a script. "Jupiter," Prudence questioned? "What is going on?" Until this moment, Prudence thought she had been taken to a hospital on Earth and the reason her family had not visited her was because the FOFA Committee would not allow interaction with people from her past. She allowed the thought to pass that her family did not want to see her. Either way, she did not think she was taken off-world. Foster explained the similarities and differences of Jupiter to what he remembered of Earth. He explained the pharmaceuticals Prudence would make routine for survival. And finally her body and spirit were ready for acclimation into the society. Prudence was given a tree house in which to live and she communed with not only trees, but with other botanists. She felt a harmony with the planet she now called home. Her life span, she was told, would be as long as the trees for whom she cared if she wanted. Ж Prudence was vexed by the trees on this planet. They seemed in every way the same as they were on Earth, less one special attribute. Prudence could not, regardless of her attempts, convince the trees to sing. The energies collected in power cells were scant. Prudence knew immediately that without the song of the trees or the joy they emit while communing, the energies would never be enough to power a cell for use. Prudence tested the exhalations of the trees over and over again. Years passed and regardless of the age of the tree the inhalation and exhalation were constant and equal. She only needed to ask for a microscope and she was given more equipment. But taking samples of the trees' cells was pointless. She had never studied trees on a cellular level and therefore did not have information with which to compare the data. Ж Prudence awoke in a start hardly able to catch her breath. She looked at a glass panel near her door where she knew the time was reported and groaned because the screen appeared blank. She had been living on Jupiter for hundreds of years, waking, taking serums and pills to keep her body virile and her mind astute, but still she missed the little conveniences she was learned in adolescence. Prudence walked to the blank panel and waved her hand before the screen. It lit up with numbers revealing what Prudence already knew; it was the middle of the night and she should be resting. Prudence inhaled and tasted the stale air from her apartment in the back of her throat. She closed her eyes and inhaled, unable to smell anything but the faint aroma of citric cleansers used for the hallway beyond her apartment permeating the door. She walked into the kitchen and filled a glass with water, tasting the salinity of the minerals as the cool beverage slid down her throat. She closed her eyes to recall what woke her from her sleep. It was a song. She knew it was a song, but she could not recall why it had disrupted her so intensely. Prudence let her body fall into a chair in the dark and tried to recall her memory by humming the tune she thought she remembered. Instead of remembering the remaining melody, she remembered the last time she heard the song. It was the melancholic cries that rang into her ears as she burned her computer equipment and retreated into the cave on Earth. Prudence picked up a glass rectangle that contained every bit of information that she collected since coming to Jupiter. She used her fingers to manipulate the screen and review data in projections appearing in the air around her. Her eyes darted from one number to another. Her eyes read line after line of words without retaining any in her thoughts. She was distracted by the song that she could still hear in her memory. Aloud, Prudence asked rhetorically, "Why?" A low hum and a series of beeps occurred. "Pru? Everything okay?" Prudence had inadvertently connected to a friend's communicator. "Cy? I'm reviewing some data." "Always working," Cy asked? "Can I ask a question that I'm not sure why I never thought to ask before?" "Of course." "Why are there botanists on Jupiter? The only botanical creatures here are ones that have been replicated from species found on Earth." "Pru," Cy explained, "When I first got here I was told that the best of the best humans from Earth were brought here to work on advancements without bureaucracy to impede said advancements." Prudence was dumbfounded. "Advancements to be used for," Prudence began a question but left her words unfinished? "Earth. We're making things better on Earth." "End communication." Through a series of verbal commands, Prudence closed all applications and projections from the glass rectangle and placed the device on a table. She looked at the dormant piece. Prudence lifted the glass of water from the table and as she felt the water wash over her palette, she had a thought. She said the word, "Cy" and the glass rectangle sitting idle on the table buzzed with activity again. "Pru?" "Yeah, it's me again. This time I meant to call out for you." "Can we talk in the morning?" Prudence ignored his question and just spoke. "They don't sing because they've had no experience." Prudence's co-worker sat quietly on the phone. He closed his eyes and had Prudence been in the same room as he, she may have been annoyed that he appeared to be sleeping through her words. But Prudence spoke to work out the thought aloud. She spoke for her ears to draw in the words. "A seed pulls in nutrients and judges time and temperature before splitting open to push out and create a root system. It's sometimes years before a sprout appears in the soil. But when it's ready, the sprout begins growing bark to protect it as it matures, learning how much to sway in the wind while the bulk of its trunk remains close to its roots. Without that knowledge of flexibility in the elements, there would be a rigidity causing it to break instead of bend. "It's just like people. People wanted to sterilize the experience of living, but eliminated so much life from their days that they are just replicants. People need the dirty experience. They need to give and take anger as well as joy. They don't need the best of everything; just like the trees, they need exposure to everything so they can build up their protective bark. Because when the communal song of joy emerges after the trials of life occur," Prudence's thought lingered in silence around her. Her communicator flashed a green light indicating it remained connected to the call with Cy. "The power does not come from all emotion. It comes from the release of joy. And the greatest joy comes from the anguish to which it is compared. Sprouting of buds in the Spring occurs after the fight to keep warm through the Winter." The thoughts were furiously piling up in her head and her mouth was not working quick enough to translate the thoughts into words. Cy finally spoke but only said the two words, "Tomorrow Pru." Prudence nodded silently in response. She said, "End communication." Prudence sat sorting through her thoughts. People make flora and fauna acclimate to their wants and needs. The flora and fauna would never be so impertinent. They retreat and twist so people can thrive. Is it that they acquiesce to our needs or is it that they understand the symbiosis of all things natural?